Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special: A new set of ’70s humbucker tones
What can these new pickups offer that isn't already available in their range?
Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special humbucker set · Source: http://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/saturday-night-special-set
Seymour Duncan is no stranger to winding pickups and has some very nice sets available. SD products are used by some famous artists and a lot of other players around the world. So what does this new Saturday Night Special set of humbuckers add to his range?
As many of you will know, I have many guitars and yes I have quite a few pairs of Mr Duncan’s pickups in various instruments of my own. When I saw he had released yet another new set of humbuckers my first thoughts were, “Why, surely he has just about all bases covered already?”
’70s Tone
The Saturday Night Specials are inspired, it would seem by, 1970s guitar tones. According to the official website, that means he’s aiming for more output on the bridge pickup and less ‘woolly’. Well, sounds like a tweaked set of classic PAF 1950s style pickups to me from that description.
Alnico 4
The set uses Alnico 4 magnets to achieve their tone, incorporates traditional maple spacers and comes with four conductor wiring as standard, so that they can be split and tapped. Each pickup is wax-potted to avoid microphonic squealing and feedback. Finish-wise they come in either nickel covers, gold covers, black or zebra uncovered coils.
’70s Stadium Rock tones?
I’m not sure these pickups really add anything else to the Seymour Duncan range really, as in my opinion they have pretty much as many options as you can imagine already. However, I do respect their output as a pickup manufacturer and have used their products personally since the age of 14 (30 years, where did that go?), so I know they can make some great products.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind trying a set out, as if they are anywhere near as good as the ones I already own then they could be fun to try. They could be great for a player like me, as I do tend to live on my bridge pickup and avoid the neck because of the muddiness which many neck pickups suffer from.
RRP USD $209 for Black or Zebra uncovered, Nickel covers $249 and Gold covers $259
For more on the Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special, head over to the SD site.
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One response to “Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special: A new set of ’70s humbucker tones”
Little suggestion to manufacturers. Have at least part of the demo video clean without effects without distortion, without backing track. Otherwise i and i assume many others believe its all post processed. A review of multiple pickups clean through the same guitar and amp would be nice. I doubt i could tell the difference on half of them,